


A Birthday Promise

by IvyCpher



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Birthday Presents, Crying, Gatsby is dead in this fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Letters, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23057683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyCpher/pseuds/IvyCpher
Summary: The only birthday present Nick Carraway receives on his thirtieth birthday is a posthumous one from Jay Gatsby.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	A Birthday Promise

Nick Carraway's thirtieth birthday came late that year. Not in the sense that his birthday came late into the year or that he didn't show his new age until it had already came, but in the fact that Nick didn't even remember his birthday until over half the day had passed. Until after Gatsby and Tom had a very aggressive fight over Daisy and her love. Nick's birthday came even later in the fact that his only birthday present he received was days after his birthday and was given posthumously by Jay Gatsby.

In the days after Jay's death, leading up to his funeral, Nick was more than distraught. Not just for the fact that his best friend was just murdered, but also for the fact that he couldn't find anyone to share his grief. Nick spent the days before Jay's funeral ripping apart his house to try and find his address book so he could alert people of his death. It was well hidden, in a locked drawer in the desk of his bedroom, but Nick picked the lock.

But even when Nick found Jay's address book and called every single number in it, no one but one said they would come to the funeral and that was Jay's father.

When Nick got off the phone with Jay's father who had told him he would take the first train to New York that he could catch to make the funeral, he cried. He cried, not only because Jay was his best friend and he was taken far too soon, not only because it was cruel that only two people would show up to Jay's funeral, not only because that Daisy would not even take his calls when he tried to tell her of Jay's death, but because he  _ loved  _ Jay Gatsby.

Nick loved Jay and he felt horrible not just for his love but because he never got to tell Jay about it. Nick didn't mind that Jay loved Daisy- he was happy for him to find love, even if it was in a horrible person such as Daisy, but the fact that the person that Jay loved- the person who in a crazy chain of events,  _ caused Jay's death, _ didn't even bother to return his calls when she had to have known of Jay's death, just absolutely twisted Nick's heart in the worst of ways.

When Nick was finished crying, he looked about Jay's room. He hadn't been in it since he had to pick out a suit for the mortician to dress Jay in. Nick had picked the pink suit that Jay had wore to his house during his flowery reunion with Daisy. He looked around the room and in it it felt like Jay was still alive, like his essence was there in full and there was nothing stopping him from waltzing through the door and asking him, 'what has you so down, old sport?'.

While Nick was looking around the room, his eye caught on a small blue box under the bed. Despite knowing he was alone in Jay's entire mansion, he looked around himself before getting up and walking over to the bed. Nick got on his knees by the bed and pulled the box out from under it. Beneath the box, Nick saw a card, and he pulled it out as well.

Nick saw that the card was addressed to him in what he instantly recognized as Jay's handwriting. It was the same handwriting that Nick had first seen on the invitation to come to one of Jay's parties at the beginning of the summer. Thinking of the memory brought a sad smile to his face… He had talked to Jay for half of the night without knowing who he was. Oh, had Nick been green in the ways of New York and Jay Gatsby.

With a slow hand that he was surprised to not see shaking, Nick opened the card. Inside there was a letter written on thick white paper. He pulled out the letter and read it.

_ Dear Nick! Happy 30th birthday, I hope that you find the day grand and fun. Finally, you'll know what it is like to be old and sensible like me. _

Nick couldn't believe it but he laughed. Tears came to his eyes again and he wiped them away on his sleeve. The letter was exactly like talking to Jay again… As soon as that thought crossed Nick's mind, however, he put the letter to his chest, unsure if he wanted to read more. Because the moment he finished reading the letter, Jay would truly be gone, but with every word he left unread, there were still pieces of Jay still alive to be seen.

But Nick knew that nothing would stop him from finishing Jay's letter. He had started reading it and now he had to finish it. And so he did.

  
  


_ Jordan told me when your birthday was. I still can't believe you're two years younger than me. You seem to have so much more sensibility and wisdom than I do, a talent I pin on your ability to blend into the background of any situation. Or maybe, you just like to listen. You listen to other peoples' troubles and curve your life by their mistakes so that you won't make the same ones they did. _

_ Another talent that you have Nick is your talent over your words. I remember that late afternoon after one of my parties and I walked you home. You were still drunk then and showed me some of your writings. I don't think you ever remembered doing that once you were sober because you never spoke of it again, but Nick, what you showed me was some of the most beautiful work I've ever read. I wish you wouldn't have gave up on your writing. _

_ You could fill a whole library, my library even, with the great works that I know you could churn out. You're like the sea! You take the ugly sharp things that are thrown into you and spit that back out looking beautiful and different. I always liked the sea. We should go buy a boat and travel on the sea sometime, Nick. Just you and me. I could show you how to sail and at night we could look at all the stars over head. Maybe even in the meantime you could work on your writing. _

_ Happy birthday, Nick. As an incentive to not give up your writing for some boring job such as bonds, I hope you like your gift. _

_ -Your friend, Jay Gatsby  _

  
  


Nick put down the letter and was unable to hold back his tears. Jay. Jay. Jay.  _ Jay.  _ He was a man of mystery to many, but Nick thought that he had to have known him better than all else. In that time, however, he would have given up knowing anything about Jay just for him to be alive again. For him to be just some random party thrower swimming in an ocean of rumors, each one more crazy than the next.

Jay had invited him on a boating trip that they would never get to take. To gaze at stars that he would never get to see again. All at once it hit Nick. Jay would never get to laugh at another one of the rumours that circled around him and delighted him. He would never get to feel the sunshine on his face again. He would never get to drink another glass of orange juice or ever wake up again. And Nick would never get to see him alive again.

With all the things that Jay would never be able to do again, Nick knew that there was one thing that he would be able to do for him. Even though Jay would never get to see it, Nick would pick up writing again, and he would do it just for him.

Though his vision was still bleary with tears and Nick no longer needed any kind of incentive to return to writing, he put down Jay's letter and gingerly picked up the box containing his birthday present. The box was small, no more than six inches long, and in Nick's tired stage of grief, he was unable to even guess what could be inside it. Gently, he peeled back the tape on the edges of the blue box. He was scared to rip the wrapping paper and he didn't know why. Maybe because if he ripped it he would be ruining the last thing Jay had ever given him.

Thankfully for Nick, the paper did not rip and once he unstuck most of the tape, he removed a little black box from inside the wrapping. Slowly, Nick opened the box's lid. Inside, he saw a fine emerald green pen with a gold coloured clip on the cap. He took the pen from the box and held it. It felt cold inside his palm, but it quickly warmed.

Holding a pen and not doing anything with it felt like a very strange thing to Nick, especially when he had just vowed to return to writing for a dead friend. Shakily, he rose from the ground, pen in hand, and looked about the room. On the desk that Nick had ransacked while looking for Jay's address book, he saw some sheets of paper that he had left out in a mess. Without thinking, Nick stepped towards the desk and sat down. He uncapped the pen that Jay had given him and slid one of the papers nearer to himself.

On the paper, Nick wrote three words.

**_THE GREAT GATSBY_ **

And on the following sheets of paper under it, he began to write his heart out. The whole story of how he came to New York and how he met a man that he would never forget and how that man was taken from the world too early in trying to achieve something that never existed.

**Author's Note:**

> In the Gay Gatsby GC on tumblr, someone mentioned how Jay died the day after Nick's birthday and this fic idea was born. I hope y'all like this!
> 
> Comments are very much appreciated!!!


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